So we all heard that after much debate inside of HP, Mrs Whitman, the current CEO, decided to release webOS to the open source community.

First, let me point out that this could really mean a lot of things, and HP has not explained exactly what kind of license will accompany webOS’s code. What I mean is, it could either be a restrictive open source license, where developers would be somewhat limited in the amount of customisation possible. But most likely, it will be handed over to developers much the way Android is. I will speculate on the effects of the latter option.

HP did say they would be “active in the development and support of webOS”. I take this with a pinch of salt. I don’t doubt that this will be the case, but HP’s focus has clearly shifted away from webOS. Let’s face it, if they where still really committed to it, convinced the platform could be a success, then the CEO would put across a strategy to capitalise as much as possible from it, not “give it away”.

Hence, I figure most of the thrust for the advancement of the OS will be provided by third parties. And here is where I start to get a bit worried. Think about an open source project targeted to the consumer market. I can name a few successful ones: Firefox, Linux, Android, Open Office.
Even though many open source projects enjoy a great measure of success, they often lack on balance, simplicity, user friendliness and over all UI finesse. That does not in itself make them bad products, but certainly makes them less enjoyable to use. I would not be very upset if we were talking about some spreadsheet program. But webOS represented to me one of the few mobile OSs that had the elegance and simplicity to compete with Apple’s offerings.

This will no longer be the case. I don’t think of open source projects as a failure as I said before. Unfortunately, they tend to lack in self-control. Let me explain by giving you a possible dialog during development of a given product in an open source community and then contrast it with one at Apple…

Open Source

Developer 1: Hey, I’ve been getting a lot of emails about adding this great feature A, B and C. I think it could be done!
Developer 2: That’s a great idea, I think we could get those ready for tomorrows build. Let’s get on it.

Apple

Developer 1: Hey, I’ve been getting a lot of emails about adding this great feature A, B and C. I think it could be done!
Developer 2: Sounds good, let’s see what Scott and Ive think of that.

after not much time….

Scott Forstall: Are you guys nuts? Where would you fit buttons for that? Plus, How many people would actually use it? I’m sure there’s an app for that somewhere.

Ok, I realise, this is not exactly how a conversation would go on, but you get the idea. Inside the protective realm of a structured and focused company, balance and design are key, which of course are the main contributors to a pleasant and consistent end-user experience. In contrast, if you multiply the hypothetical situation above, in an open source community, an operating system would eventually get bloated, directionless, slow. If you are ready to trade that for an almost unlimited amount of features, then I’m sure you’ll be happy with webOS in 2 years.

After saying that, I certainly prefer to see an open source driven webOS, than not to see one at all. I just worry, that what made this beautiful OS attractive to me, might just go away.

If indeed, like many people speculate, this OS will mature to compete with Android, it does have some weapons up it’s sleeves. For example, it’s development environment is based on web programming languages such as HTML and CSS. This means, it will be a lot easier for a small developer with an iPhone app, to jump across to webOS, rather than Android, where JAVA is used, a much less common language. Not to mention that all the apps created for webOS, will also run on any given browser.

To add to that, HP will also make the framework for ENYO available for free. ENYO is a great developer tool used to easily scale a UI of an app between different resolutions. This would not completely solve the problem of shifting between screen sizes but, for certain apps, could certainly be of help. Remember that this is one of the biggest complaints from Android developers when trying to cater to a huge collection of phones and tablets.

I really hope webOS does well, if anything, by competing with Android. And honestly, if that is all you expect from the future of webOS, I don’t think you will be disappointed.